So I've taught a lot at the university level, and reading this and the original blog post they were responding to I realized that I gradually shifted in how I s

So I've taught a lot at the university level, and reading this and the original blog post they were responding to I realized that I gradually shifted in how I saw exams. The traditional model, the one implicitly adopted in the posts, is one where the instructor presents material, maybe with some discussion or engagement with the material in the form of activities or assignments, and then evaluates understanding on an exam of some sort. In this model, the exam is a measurement. It makes sense from this standpoint that all you really need is some megaexam that measures your comprehension of the material, and if you pass it, you pass. There is something to be said for this in all sorts of areas of life. There's another model, though, where the teacher is a sort of coach. In this paradigm, your role as instructor isn't just to present material and then measure it, but to provide incentives along the way for the student to engage with the material and process it. In this model, the exam is activity. You present a series of quizzes or exams for the student to problem solve, and you incentivize this by giving credit or not giving credit. It's the equivalent of training drills in sport. All those assignments and midterm exams are incentives for staying engaged with the material along the way, to practice. I suppose you could say something like "well taking the final exam repeatedly could serve that role, and you can't literally give the same exam over and over again due to cheating and learning to the test, so what you'd really be doing is giving multiple exams, which is kinda like assignments" but then at that point you've redefined things so much it's a moot point. There's also little point in assigning material the student doesn't understand yet, so what you end up with is what usually is done, which is units, with assignments or interim exams that are graded along the way. Ideally you'd have tailored material, activities, and exams that are tailored to specific students and their specific progress, but in practice at universities there's just not enough resources to do that. It's too expensive, if you include social components as part of the learning process. There are also general trends that are too hard to ignore (most students whereever you are will be in some peak of a bell curve of some sort), and so you end up with what usually happens (which is sort of the point of the author).